School Belonging, Ethnic Identity, and Psychological Adjustment Among Ethnic Minority College Students

Abstract

This study considers how the psychological adjustment of ethnic minority college students may be linked to a sense of school belonging and ethnic identity, two constructs related to individuals feeling like they belong to a larger group. Using self-reports from 311 undergraduates from ethnic minority backgrounds, school belonging was found to be negatively associated with depressive symptoms, and positively associated with perceived self-worth, scholastic competence, and social acceptance, while ethnic identity was only found to be positively associated with self-worth. Furthermore, the interaction between ethnic identity and school belonging was significantly associated with self-worth, suggesting that in the absence of a sense of belonging at school, stronger ethnic identity was linked to higher self-worth. College students reported the lowest levels of self-worth when they were neither connected to their college nor connected to their ethnic group.

Keywords:

• school belonging
• ethnic identity
• college students
• self-worth
• self-concept
• depressive symptoms
• ethnic groups

Notes

Analyses were run to determine if dichotomizing the family standard of living variable into low-income versus not would alter the findings. While this variable was found to similarly predict depressive symptoms and scholastic competence, when used in the regressions as a control variable it accounted for less of the variance than the 5-point scale. Based on these analyses, the 5-point scale was utilized in these analyses as it was the more conservative approach to testing the associations of interest.